After wire is made it is wound onto spools for storage or sale. Rectangular wire in particular must be precisely spaced on the spool in order to avoid overlapping turns or large gaps between turns, either of which can abraid and damage the wire as it slips against adjacent turns or twists into gaps between turns.
Presently, the traverse speed is adjusted visually as the wire is being wound. A good operator can "fine tune" the traverse speed to achieve a neatly-laid coil, but a poor operator is likely to produce a coil so disheveled that it must be rewound or, if damaged, scrapped. When a changeover is made to wire of a different width, a certain amount of experimenting is necessary to again find the correct traverse speed setting.